Crescent Solitaire Variations and House Rules
The standard game of Crescent, with sixteen piles, eight foundations and three shuffles, is the one our free Crescent Solitaire game plays when you first open it. Like every solitaire that has been passed around card tables for generations, it has picked up a few local customs. This page covers the two house rules you can switch on in our Settings, the other variations you may meet, and a few related games.
House Rules You Can Turn On in Our Game
Open Settings in the game to find these. A change takes effect with your next deal, and your statistics are kept separately for each way of playing, so an easy win never mixes with a hard one.
Unlimited shuffles
In the standard game you may shuffle three times. That limit is what makes Crescent hard: a good share of deals simply cannot be finished in three shuffles.
With Unlimited shuffles switched on, you may bring the bottom cards to the top as often as you like. The game becomes gentle and almost always winnable. A pile of six cards comes back to its starting order after six shuffles in a row, so shuffling over and over without moving anything gets you nowhere. Each shuffle still has to be put to use.
| Shuffles allowed | How it feels |
|---|---|
| 3 (standard) | A real challenge. Expect to lose more often than you win, even with careful play. |
| Unlimited | Relaxed. Most deals come out if you keep at it. |
At a real table: some families settle on a number in between, such as five shuffles, or allow one extra shuffle as a "mercy" when a game is nearly won. Agree on it before you deal.
All cards face up
In the standard game only the top card of each pile is face up. You find out what is underneath one card at a time, and a shuffle is always a bit of a surprise.
With Show all cards face up switched on, every pile lists the cards under its top card, from the top down. The rules of movement do not change at all: only the top card of a pile can move. What changes is that you can plan. You can see which pile hides the 2 you are waiting for, and exactly which sixteen cards the next shuffle will bring up, because the last card in each list is the one that will come to the top.
This turns Crescent from a game of patience and luck into more of a puzzle, in the spirit of FreeCell. It is also the best way to learn the game. Play a few open deals, watch how stacks wind and unwind, and the closed game will make much more sense.
Other Variations You May Meet
These are not options in our game, but you may come across them in books, on other tables or in a relative's firm opinion about "the real rules."
No wrapping from King to Ace
In the standard game a King and an Ace of the same suit are neighbors on the piles, so a King may be placed on an Ace and an Ace on a King. Some players do not allow this. The Ace can then only go on a 2, and the King only on a Queen. It is a small change that makes a hard game a little harder.
Building in one direction only
A stricter rule lets you build on the piles only downward, as in most other solitaire games: a 7 may go on an 8, but not on a 6. With half the moves gone, this version is much harder, and it is best kept for players who find the standard game too easy.
Moving runs of cards
The standard rule is one card at a time. A looser table rule lets you pick up a whole run of the same suit, such as 9, 8, 7 of Spades, and move it onto a 10 or a 6 of Spades in one go. This saves a good deal of re-stacking and makes the game noticeably easier, since a run built "the wrong way round" no longer has to be taken apart card by card.
No trading between foundations
The standard game lets the top card of one foundation cross to the other foundation of its suit when the two piles meet in the middle. Some rule sets leave this out and say that a card on a foundation is there for good. Without the trade, you have to be much more careful about which of the two foundations a middle card goes to.
Variations Side by Side
| Rule | Standard game | Common variation | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shuffles | 3 | Unlimited, or another agreed number | More shuffles, easier game |
| Cards showing | Top card of each pile | All cards face up | Less luck, more planning |
| King and Ace | Neighbors on the piles | Not neighbors | Slightly harder |
| Building on piles | Up or down by suit | Down only | Much harder |
| Moving | One card at a time | Whole runs | Easier |
| Foundation to foundation | Allowed within a suit | Not allowed | Harder |
About Deal Numbers and Winnable Deals
Every deal in our game has a number, shown above the table. The same number always gives the same layout, so you can replay a deal that beat you, or give the number to a friend and compare how far you each got. Type a number into Settings to play that deal.
Because so many Crescent deals cannot be won in three shuffles, the game does you a small favor when you press New Game. It tries a handful of fresh deals against its own solver and gives you the first one the solver managed to finish under the rules you have chosen. The search is short, so now and then you will get a deal that has not been tested. And a deal that can be won is not a deal that is easy to win. The solver sees every card. You do not.
Related Games
- Spider solitaire is the best-known two-deck game. You build long runs in ten columns instead of working sixteen small piles.
- FreeCell is the classic open game, where every card is face up and almost every deal can be solved.
- Klondike is the solitaire most people learned first, with one deck, seven columns and a stock to turn.
New to Crescent? The rules page walks through the standard game step by step, and the strategy guide shows how to make three shuffles go a long way.